Partners for Life?
by Cryptic Enigma
Summary: This isn't fan fiction, but I really want to publically share my opinion on the Billy/Chuck situation. PG for some bad language.


Okay, so this isn't really fan fiction. But I really want to have my say on this whole Billy/Chuck situation. It's a bit random, more of a rant than an essay. But give it a once over if you like.

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Partners for Life?

Earlier this evening, I quickly logged onto my computer and opened my internet browser, eager to view the pictures and videos from this week's episode of Smackdown…for one reason in particular. Via my Windows Media Player, I watched the scene from Smackdown this week where Chuck proposes to Billy with color in my cheeks and a great big smile on my face. Personally, I thought the audience reaction was brilliant. When those words escaped from Chuck's lips 'Will you be my partner for life?', the place just erupted! Billy's facial expressions were priceless and Rico was hilarious as usual. Personally, I thought it was a lovely little scene that must have taken a lot of guts to get up and do. I didn't think that anything could kill off the illation I was feeling in light of such a wonderful revelation and truly brave and riveting attempt to strengthen Billy and Chuck's on-going gimmick.

I was wrong, however. Because the reaction that a lot of my fellow 'fans' have given in reference to this little revelation has been appalling to me as of yet. Fair enough, homosexuality is a touchy subject, but some of the stuff I've heard is simply ridiculous. For example, one mark, obviously a boy in his younger teens, said to me 'Billy used to be my favorite wrestler, but now I hate him 'cos he's a fag!' I understand that marks aren't going to realise that Billy and Chuck are both straight and married out of character, but it just saddens me to think that in this modern day and age, people still have such an old-fashioned, dated opinion on such themes as homosexuality. To people with those views, I have only two words to say; Grow up! Homosexuality has been around since the time of the ancient Greeks, maybe even before that. Homosexuals are people, human beings, flesh and blood like you and me. They are NOT perverted monsters who rape children and have AIDS like everyone seems to think. Just because they have differing sexual preferences to straight people, they are still human. I know the Bible say that men shouldn't be with men, or as D-Von so aptly put it, 'God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.' I for one am agnostic, so this means nothing to me. To me, Christian beliefs are all well and good, but I feel a lot of the so-called 'sins' defy human nature. Also, the fact that gay priests and other gay church members do exist defies the 'logic' that all gay people are evil and are going to hell when they die. Also, people seem to think that homosexuality is a choice. It isn't, I'm afraid. Just the same way a straight man couldn't bring himself to touch another man sexually, gay men cannot bring themselves to touch women. It's just the way they are, and I don't understand why people can't except that.

Something else that annoys me is what if this was two divas? What if Torrie got down on her knee and proposed to Stacy? What would the reaction be then? I think someone saying 'I hate gay men, they're faggots…But lesbians are cool!' is hypocrisy, pure and simple. If I had a penny for every guy that has said the above statement to me, I'd be a rich gal. I happily admit I'm bisexual, and men seem fascinated by this when they talk to me. But what if I was a guy? It would be a whole new story then…

Now I'm done ranting about the treatment of homosexuals (Which, no doubt, I will come back to again later on) I assume that the idea is that Billy and Chuck are supposed to be in love with each other. There has never been anything wrong with love, not even in the world of wrestling. I recall the ovation Matt Hardy and Lita received that night last year when they kissed for the first time on the entrance ramp. Their love was celebrated. Why not celebrate the love of Billy and Chuck? Who cares if they're two men? If the love's real, it doesn't matter what sex the two people who share it are. There are gay people on various other popular television shows, and gay couples feature more and more commonly on soap operas nowadays. Homosexuality is an issue discussed in great length within the media today, yet people still have trouble accepting its existence. Gay people are on earth, they're here to stay, and they'll fall in love and get married whether bigots like it or not. (Told you I'd come back to this again.)

If I was to compare anyone to Billy and Chuck who are currently on the go in WWE at the moment, it's the UnAmericans. Even though their storylines are radically different, their purpose and effects are practically the same. They both aim to shock and provoke the audience into reacting to them, and they also deal with extremely sensitive subjects, those subjects being homosexuality and patriotism/politics. Some people say that the UnAmericans went too far the other week when they were discussing George Bush or with threatening to burn the American flag, and I'm sure a LOT of people think the federation has gone too far with Billy and Chuck getting hitched. But isn't it good to push the envelope to the limit once in a while? Just look at Goldust. His implied homosexuality put him on the map and made his career in the WWE. Fair enough, his situation wasn't as elaborate as Billy and Chuck's, but look at all the other 'taboo' subjects the WWE have covered in the past. Stalking with DDP, cultism/vampirism with the Ministry Of Darkness and the Brood, kidnapping with the Undertaker, and even hit and run with Rikishi and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Many of the above strike me of being way more 'taboo' then homosexuality.

Billy and Chuck have always had a unique relationship right from the moment they joined forces on Heat the week after Chuck had been unceremoniously expelled from the Alliance. Since then, their on-screen friendship has escalated into a web of mystery and intrigue, and has finally come to a head. In my opinion, just so long as Billy and Chuck aren't having sex or making out (ala Nidia and Jamie Noble. *Shudders*) there's nothing wrong with their 'relationship' being featured as official on camera. At the end of the day, people seem to be forgetting that this is sports ENTERTAINMENT. People know that Billy and Chuck are not gay lovers in real life, just like many actors in the theatre and on television play gay roles, yet are also straight as arrows. A good recent example would be Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the new movie 'Common Ground'. My personal example is my theatre studies tutor, who played a gay man in a play when he was younger and even had to make out with another male actor. My theatre studies tutor is straight, married and has two beautiful children. He played the part of a gay man because he was secure enough with his sexuality to be able to get on with acting out his part in the play without feeling awkward about it. He was simply doing what he enjoyed – Acting. Nothing more, nothing less. It's the same with Billy and Chuck. They love their jobs as sports entertainers. They just want to get on with it and do what they enjoy. The gay gimmick has definitely granted them more airtime than most people, and has definitely caught the attention of the fans. And like my theatre tutor, they obviously feel comfortable enough with their sexuality and, more importantly, each other to be able do a gimmick with copious homosexual overtones without feeling inadequate. That is an admirable quality of a sports entertainer, as well as of an actor.

If anything, I believe that both Billy and Chuck are very courageous to go out there on national television and do/say what they do in front of tens of thousands of people. More importantly, they are willing to do it. A lot of wrestling fans that I have talked to seem convinced that Vince McMahon is some kind of fearsome ogre that will make sure that everything goes his way, or else. I personally am positive that Billy and Chuck, especially a veteran like Billy, would have a pretty damn good say in what they do or do not do with their characters. Shawn Michaels said somewhere that Vince McMahon is one of the most reasonable, forgiving people he's ever met. Anyone who has seen the movie 'Beyond the Mat' will have caught a glimpse of what Vince is like behind the scenes. He likes to try new, attention-grasping, shocking gimmicks. Look at Droz's run as 'Puke', or Tommy Dreamer's recent run of performing foul, though entertaining acts. Not many people know this, but Dreamer actually did the hair eating, etc, for fun before he joined the ranks of World Wrestling Entertainment. He had say and choice in that gimmick, just like everyone else. It was Lance Storm's idea to hang the American flag upside-down for the symbolic gesture of the UnAmericans, denoting the upside-down culture and beliefs of America today. The Superstars have a fair deal of say in the way their gimmicks work, therefore if Billy and Chuck didn't want to do the whole 'gay' gimmick and didn't see it taking their careers anywhere, they could have easily refused or compromised with Vince. Nobody knows what is best for Billy and Chuck more than they do, and they obviously trust that Vince knows what he's doing by putting them in such a controversial gimmick.

Controversy…Another factor that I think makes the 'gay' gimmick so wonderful. Look around you at people on the internet, discussing and speculating over who's going to be at the wedding and will anyone try to ruin the wedding, what'll happen afterwards and will there be any twists involved. I think the impact of the Smackdown! proposal has definitely taken root and caused shockwaves to course through the wrestling world. It's a bold step in sports entertainment, and an admirable one at that. As I've said before, Billy and Chuck are both extremely brave to be going through with this and I think it's a good thing for people to be discussing it. If anything, it should make the fans become more used to the idea and maybe even annihilate bigotry, or at least dilute it. Maybe if those who look up to Billy and Chuck see them as a gay couple, they might think 'Hey…Maybe being gay isn't such a bad thing after all…' I don't think, as some people may be stupid enough to believe, that it would persuade young fans into becoming homosexual, that's simply ridiculous. Homosexuality is not a disease, it doesn't spread from person to person like a common cold. It just might do some of the younger fans good, their young minds so open to new influences, and maybe kill off 'trendy' derogative terms for homosexuals, such as 'faggot' and 'queer', words that the world could most certainly do without.

The only negative feature I can really see about Billy and Chuck's 'togetherness' is the effect it may have on their careers. If the pair are made 'partners for life', that will restrict their future gimmicks greatly. They obviously won't be able to go off and tag with another superstar, at least not on a long-term basis. They'll be able to work as singles, but obviously will have the other at ringside showing support, which might not be such a bad thing though interference every time they had matches would be become annoying. Unless they did the whole Edge and Christian 'Stay in the back, because I wanna do this myself' thing. Saying that though, arguably it could open new doors for the creative team. They could do interesting bits about gay related topics; for example, adoption of a child. That would definitely be more of a backstage thing, since they probably couldn't pick a fight with anyone over that (Or could they?) but perhaps they could have an interfering body in their relationship, whether male or female, and it could evolve into quite an interesting rivalry.

Another bad thing about the marriage is what will happen if the gimmick one day should come to an end, say end in a divorce because one cheats on the other. Will Chuck always be remembered as 'The one who got down on one knee and proposed to his tag team partner'? But then again, Rikishi was the one who ran over Stone Cold, yet only a few years later, he's being cheered as one of the biggest faces on Smackdown. Perhaps if the pair have a particularly nasty and emotional break-up, it may evoke feelings of sympathy from the crowd and get one of the two over as a face or heel, whatever the case may be. There's hope for Chuck yet…As for Billy, to be honest, I have thought of Billy as a vaguely homosexual character all along. Come on, with a name like 'Ass Man', can you honestly blame me? But his flamboyant, almost camp character has made me love him all the more over the years. Here is a man who triumphed after a run as the dreaded 'Rock-a-Billy'. He can come back from just about anything, so I'm confident that even after this gimmick ends, the two will be able to go on to different and better things with relative ease.

As for the wedding next week, I for one am greatly looking forward to it. It'll be very interesting to see how World Wrestling Entertainment handle it, especially when the minister speaks those all elusive words, 'You may kiss the bride…' And more to the point, who's going to be wearing the dress? I'd vote for Chuck, since he so has the legs for it. Is Rico going to be the best man? Or maybe, and perhaps more appropriately, head flower girl? Are there going to be guest appearances from Road Dogg or Sean O Haire? Will the star-crossed lovers get the approval of their former tag team partners? Will their be a plot to sabotage the wedding, courtesy of everyone's favorite 'man of the cloth', Reverend D-Von? Will there be a fairytale ending, or disaster and heart-break? There's only one sure way to find out…Tune into Smackdown next week and see for yourself!

But seriously speaking in conclusion, I quite strongly believe that this whole 'Partners for life' deal will consequently make or break the careers of both Billy and Chuck. But I also believe that with a little support, encouragement and tolerance from the fans, it could be a great success.

At least, that's my two cents on the matter.


End file.
